


Coup D'etat

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Series: Parallels [3]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Branching narrative, Complete, Gen, Suicide, Unreliable Narrator, blame music, https://bit.ly/2ZEPSl4, this isnt how i meant to update or jump back into the fandom but, which leads to character bashin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: Tsuna was serious when he said he'd rather burn them to the ashes then let the trail of death and corruption grow. Maybe they should have taken him seriously.Maybe they should have made him care more.
Series: Parallels [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/798054
Comments: 10
Kudos: 462





	1. Chapter 1

Tsuna’s Hyper Intuition rings with the void, clangs against nothing. He watches the mafiosi mill around him and wonders truly, how stupid Iemitsu and Timoteo are. Reborn, no, not as much as them. He had looked at Tsuna when he arrived and kept him so busy he could never find a moment alone. Smart of him. 

Takeshi is off to the side with Hayato, talking and grinning through bandages while the blond yells at him. Ryohei is with Colonello if he heard right, Kyouya disappeared to the roof or a secluded room, Mukuro and Chrome unnerving one of Timoteo’s guardians. Occasionally, Mukuro glances over to Tsuna. The expression on his face isn’t one Tsuna can parse out. But then again, he’s never been good at reading other people, anyways.

They didn’t check any of them at the doors. It would be pointless, considering mafia tendencies. Tsuna feels the metal against his leg like ice.

“What are you thinking with that expression, Dame-Tsuna?” The shoe narrowly misses his head, he barely dodges, and it makes the hitman pause in a way he doesn’t expect. “What’s wrong.”

It’s not a question. Tsuna cracks his neck and looks back out at the parties that are barely avoiding a barrel to the temple. “I don’t want to be the Decimo,” he says. It doesn’t take the edge from Reborn’s face or distract him, but Tsuna isn’t really shooting for that.

“It’s a bit late to still be saying that.” 

Haha. Sure.

Tsuna doesn’t answer him, turning away to amble over to Enma instead, and Reborn lets him. Here, he can’t press for answers as he usually would, not without drawing attention or, even worse, tarnishing the Vongola image some. Powerful as he is, it wouldn’t seem well for the heir to be pushed around by an Outsider.

There’s a note for Enma, off in the schoolbag he’d left in Tsuna’s room. He doesn’t know when he’ll find it. He’s not sorry for not telling him. If he was, then what would he feel over Hayato and the others?

Too bad they decided to give a shit too late. Too bad it still all felt arranged, pawns moved on the chessboard of hitmen with no regard. Too bad Tsuna had made his decision months before Reborn appeared. 

The ceremony begins soon. Smiles drop and positions are taken, the ritual began for the second time. Tsuna counts the seconds as Timoteo weaves words again, the Shimon bowing heads in repentance as the Vongola nod in acceptance. He feels the power thrum in him as Nono pours “blood” over his hands, feels the thrum in the back of his head rise higher. There is a quiet moment where the old man steps back, where hands begin to clap, where Hayato and Iemitsu and Timoteo look at him so proud, and Tsuna feels guilty, for just a moment.

A bloody legacy and future won’t disappear just because of one weak-willed boy, though.

The knife in his waistband slips easily, the men around him stutter confusedly, and Tsuna gives a small, bitter smile as he lights it with Flame and drags it through his throat. 


	2. Side A: The Kids Aren't Alright

They are not allowed to attend the funeral.

This is not to say that they are  _ unable  _ to. If they wished, the whole of Vongola could storm the home and force their way into the event Sawada Nana has shrunk to a five-person tragedy, no effort needed. But they don’t. 

Reborn hasn’t heard Iemitsu speak since the incident.

* * *

Reborn shows up in an all-black suit, accents of orange gone and Leon tucked away elsewhere. He doesn’t use the infantile voice or facade. Nana doesn’t address him anyhow beyond a single, quick glance. It is colder than any he’s ever received from the Hibari boy, and that is what sets him at unease more than anything. This woman had been so full of warmth before.

The other people here are… unexpected. An old man with Nana’s eyes. Quiet, one by her side constantly and the other watching the casket with laser intensity, the Yamamoto men. Reborn doesn’t know why he himself is allowed here, explicitly asked. He doesn’t search for an answer.

The ceremony is quick. A priest not available or an effort to get it over with or out of spite, even. The box goes to the crematorium quickly after. All of it is a closed affair. Reborn wonders if it’s considered bad luck to see the deceased’s face in Japan. He wonders if it’s bad luck not to.

The household, when they return as the sun is casting red over the sky, is quiet. The children have been spirited off somewhere, Bianchi hasn’t been in since two days past, and Iemitsu’s chaos had been scrubbed from the house by the end of the first night. Iemitsu in general has been scrubbed away, family photos missing from the walls and table decorations smashed or gone. 

It feels strange returning with so little left to show who lived here.

More surprising is the hard liquor Nana has hiding in the far back of her sink, where absolutely zero people in the house would see but her or Tsuna. She takes it out with a casualness that isn’t forced, setting it on the table and pulling glasses. She shares only a glance with Yamamoto Tsuyoshi before setting out five instead of four. They nurse their drinks in silence.

It is not Reborn who breaks the silence. It is the old man, Nana’s father if he has any observations left to his skull after the past week. Shimizu Kenshin is a quiet man and gives off the air of a librarian, unassuming and passive.

“Why?”

Nana shifts slightly. Her hair looks shorter, but he doesn’t know if it’s just his imagination. “Iemitsu,” Is all she replies. It seems enough for her father, who seems to breathe in a decade through his sigh.

It is quiet, in the void left.

* * *

Bianchi stays missing from the household. Fuuta and I-Pin return. Lambo does not, and Reborn feels he understands why. He does not understand why he is allowed to remain here. He doesn’t cross that line and ask Nana. She’s had enough demanded from her.

Instead, he spends most his days outside the house, far from the neighborhood. Most failed missions he’d be biting his tongue red and finding the next as quick as possible, but this feels too large a fuckup to run from. There’s too much shrapnel left.

Takeshi is hanging around the Sawada household like a spirit, silent and watching, but Mukuro and Chrome have disappeared to parts unknown, leaving the illusionist’s minions wreaking havoc in Kokuyo. They don’t care Tsuna is gone, more that their boss is upset over it. Reborn shoves them into doing something that isn’t traumatising civilian brats and debates if Hibari would chew them up and spit them out quickly or slowly.

The prefect himself has taken an almost fanatical devotion to Namimori-chuu’s students, trashing his office with files and folders until he’d made a list. He does absolutely nothing in regards to the list, but it is there, memorized by him and Kusakabe Tetsuya and taken away by the right hand after he’s satisfied. Reborn can recognise the pattern of suicide watches and isolation among the papers. Hibari does absolutely everything in a new effort to chase criminals out of the town. This includes but is not limited to: The Vongola forces that had been patrolling for the ceremony, the Giglio Nero, the Red Tsars, and fucking Vongola Nono himself.

There is nothing, in Reborn’s opinion, like the sight of a veteran, experienced man. who would be an international criminal if authorities knew him. cowering at the presence and violence of a grieving Cloud. It’s what vividly reminds him of the fact most Clouds follow their Skies quickly after a death.

The others don’t fare well either, in the scheme of things. Ryohei continues at school and with his boxing, but Reborn’s animals keep track of his comings and goings from home, into the seedier parts of town, of the blood that gets hidden too-expertly from Sasagawa Kyouko. He knows Gokudera has stopped attending school entirely, instead chain-smoking when he appears and a ghost the other eighty-percent of the time. Reborn catches sight of Lambo with him when he can find him, which answers that question at least. He doesn’t know why the boy is with the mercenary of all people.

The others, the civilians. Kyouko, Miura and Irie are stunned at the news, react as civilians would and cry and sob and question  _ why _ . Kurokawa Hana doesn’t seem as shocked or torn in two. Her face when told is more a grim acceptance than anything, and something tells him she had predicted this long before. 

Reborn should have fucking seen it before a civilian. He had, he can admit now. 

He’d just been more focused on getting Tsuna through this alive, if not whole. And look where they are now.

* * *

Iemitsu tries to return all of once to the house, before he leaves for Italy for good to take up the mantle and probably knock up some woman who he  _ didn’t  _ need to fabricate a second life for. Hopefully. Reborn’s hoping prenups are involved this time.

The moment Nana catches sight of him the entryway explodes in green spikes that puncture wood and plaster, destroying the genkan. 

Iemitsu does not return.

* * *

“He said he didn’t want me to be like him.”

Takeshi is sitting at the dining table. Him and Shimizu are the only ones to use it anymore; Nana takes her meals small enough to eat standing or in her room and the kids tend to stick to the living room more often than not, preferring the little noise to be coaxed out of the television. Reborn’s nursing a cup of coffee on the counter while he watches the kid. He’d been more alert than usual this morning and it had made him nervous.

“Tsuna?” Reborn asks, and Takeshi nods his head. He’s got short sleeves on and there’s nothing so obvious as thin scars, but Reborn knows there’s more than one way to hurt yourself. He’d seen Tsuna’s body in the morgue, before Nana had swooped in and banished them all. His thighs had been a nightmare. The razors had been hidden under the sink cabinets. “Are you like him?”

The teen shakes his head slowly. Reborn finishes his coffee and starts a second batch. He wants to smoke.

“Then you’re doing fine, aren’t you?”

* * *

Gokudera is, eventually, dragged back to Italy by Shamal. It’s not done with a blaze of glory or screaming or any sort of outburst really. The kid goes quiet, eyes stuck on the ground and reeking of bitterness. Lambo goes with Reborn assumes, if only because he doesn’t hear about a homeless brat harassing stores for candy after.

Kakimoto and Joshima disappear. Hibari doesn’t take notice. The halls of Namimori seem like a church sometimes, silent. The teachers constantly look terrified.

Nana’s father leaves the day an official letter comes in the mail. The paper’s thick in her hands, bends when her grip tightens.

“I divorced Iemitsu,” She says abruptly, shoving the envelope away, “I’m Shimizu Nana again. After- I didn’t want his name.” And Reborn looks at her and sees the bags under her eyes paired with the new set to her shoulders, the iron in her expression constantly now. She doesn’t dance around the house cleaning up or sing with the television. Most of her clothes seem older, more reserved than the daily sundresses and blouses. She looks her age now and it’s a fucking shame to see a woman take on a decade in an instant.

“Nana.” She’s got a finger tapping on the envelope. Her eyes meet his with quiet force. “Why am I still here?”

_ Why haven’t you kicked me out? Why haven’t you tried to attack me, scream at me, blame me for dragging your son into this? _

She looks away, tap-tap-tapping. He can feel her leg jiggling under the table.

“Two days after you started tutoring Tsuna I found a bottle of sleeping pills in his room.”  _ Tap-tap-tap-tap.  _ “I’d started checking his room more and more because he’d been worrying me. They were new.” Her hand clenches into a fist on the annulment. “I- it wasn’t hard to understand, what he- what might have happened. But he never tried to find them after, or get more. Not from what the Hibari told me.” Nana looks him in the eye again, fierce, grabs one of his hands with a desperation. 

“Reborn- I would find splatters of blood from you abusing my boy and the gangsters roughhousing, and I would find the razors and periodically toss them, and I could just look at him and see he was tired or frustrated or upset, but he was  _ alive _ . My boy was alive and he had friends and he was trying assignments even if he still failed them and I saw him  **_smile_ ** for the first time in months. Maybe years, if I’m honest on what was fake. And if you hadn’t appeared my son may have not thought to burn out his throat but if Iemitsu had been  _ fucking honest _ he wouldn’t have had to in the first place.”

And there’s not much he can say to that, something like  _ you’re welcome  _ is just a whole new value of fucked up, so he doesn’t reply. So Reborn takes off his fedora and sets it on the table. So he grabs the sake that had appeared from one day and the next and pours them both a glass. 

And they drink it in, toasting to the bitterness of surviving parents.


	3. Side B: The Kids Are Awake

Tsuna blinks his eyes open to a white ceiling and a steady beeping.

There’s a lot of ways he could react. Anger, at hearing, seeing. Frustration, he’d need to try again. Sadness, at not succeeding. Relief, some hidden desire to actually stay. Confusion, because he’d been sure it would work.

He’s just kind of tired. His mouth is dry because of the tube shoved down his throat and his arms and legs feel stiff and janky when he tries to twitch them. He keeps blinking at the ceiling, because it doesn’t involve effort or thought. Tsuna isn’t really up for either right now.

There’s someone else in the room with him. Gotta be a patient with the beeping out of tune with his though he can’t hear any movement, barely any breath. Asleep, or in a coma. Is he in the ICU? The long-term care unit? No one else is there. He doesn’t know what time it is.

A door clacks open, slippers  _ thip-thipp _ ing through covers. There’s a tapping in front of him, to his right, jiggling of something hanging that makes his arm colder a few moments later, and after a minute or so a face appears in his vision, generic and absent-minded as hands rearrange him slightly. The nurse doesn’t pay attention for one, two heartbeats until she notices him staring right at her.

She screams right in his goddamn face. As one does.

There’s not so much a flurry of chaos as there is a sudden burst of stupidity. The doctors are clamouring over whether or not they should take his intubator tube out, then if they should call his family ( _ which one? _ ) immediately, then if it would even be  _ good  _ for them to be called at all. They’re arguing like he’s not even there which isn’t very polite. Tsuna’d think his opinion still counted for something, even if he’s viewed as an invalid right now.

He makes the decision for them by carefully pulling out his intubation tube, stopping and adjusting as his instinct guides. They don’t notice until he coughs and bangs a hand on the bed’s railing, ignoring the IV that shakes with it. Fuckers jump like he executed them. Tsuna just gives them a pointed look.

They scurry away with nary a nod after that, going to do whatever they have planned. Outside the doorway, looming- with a cigarette as usual- is a Committee member. He wonders why. Probably Hibari making one of his Threats again, or maybe actually worried, or something else. He wonders further why no one  _ else  _ is there.

Oh wait, he doesn’t care.

* * *

One of the doctors, a man Tsuna can identify as one of Them with his tattoos and permanent glower, nearly throws him against the wall when he catches Tsuna trying to clamber out the window. Namimori is populated by stubborn assholes so it barely opens, hinged so it isn’t wide enough for a body to slip through. Lucky for Tsuna, he has no qualms breaking public property at this point; unlucky for him, the bastard Yakuza-adjacent catches him before he can.

“ _ No _ ,” He says, shaking Tsuna by his collar like a kitten. Tsuna responds by punching him in the jaw, as one does, which gets him nothing but an unimpressed look. He’s hauled back to the bed and dropped on it and the Committee member is called inside the room to keep him from moving. Tsuna thinks it’s one of the high schoolers. Waste of manpower, that is.

“You’re staying in that bed until we give the word kid,” The doctor continues, “And until your guardians decide what to do with you.”

What guardians. His mother didn’t even notice he was here the last time he got fucked up and gods know  _ Iemitsu- _

Aw, fuck. The doctor seems to get when he clues in and gives him what can be called a sympathetic look. He pats Tsuna on the shoulder once, brusque. There’s not more that needs to be said now that the teen’s finally using his brain, so he leaves him alone with the delinquent and body,  _ beep-beep _ ing monitor and breathing the only noise.

He’s alive. He’s  _ here _ , which means he may not immediately be fucked but the Vongola are definitely not happy with his stunt- he’s going to have to deal with Timoteo, Iemitsu,  _ Reborn and his guardians--  _ and that’s a whole other ballpark considering he didn’t think he would ever have to look them in the eyes again.

Tsuna remembers the talk he had with Takeshi, right after he had tried to keep him from jumping. His plans hadn’t been hampered by time travelling and bullshit inheritances yet- he’d seen Reborn and Gokudera and Bianchi as just bumps in the road, annoyances keeping him distracted from the pills in his room. But he had seen the other boy and just  _ ached _ , because Takeshi had such a better chance than Tsuna to be an actual  _ person  _ and he shouldn’t think he’s got to  _ waste  _ it.

And now he’s going to have to look at him and talk to him after taking all that and throwing it away. Tsuna throws himself back on the bed, the arm not loaded with IVs over his eyes. He’s going to pretend for now, at least, that the world outside doesn’t exist.

The regret’s starting to sink in, now.

* * *

The first person to visit isn't his mother or father, or Reborn, or one of his Guardians. It isn't one of Timeteo's either which is a relief he hadn't thought about until now.

Kusakabe's upgraded from his uniform to a bonafide three piece sans jacket, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Tsuna can just see the trail of what he knows is a tattoo of a smoking crow. The mark of a veteran in the Tori no Mue.

"I was the least biased," Kusakabe says in lieu of real greeting. Tsuna gives him a tiny snort in answer. He looks exhausted. Tsuna realises he doesn't know how long he was unconscious. "How much do you remember?"

He slashes in front of his throat with a hand. The other man winces. With a nod he dismisses the Committee member who's all too glad to escape, gone before the door even has a chance to swing all the way open. Kusakabe takes his seat, settling in it heavily. He reeks of cigarette smoke; a habit picked back up.

"You," Kusakabe says, "almost began an international crime war on Namimori's doorstep. The only thing that stopped Kyouya-kun from slaughtering multiple people in that hall was the fact he was busy calling transport." He pauses, considering. "That number includes you."

Well, obviously. Tsuna gestures at himself and points at the clipboard he knows is attached to the foot of the bed. Kusakabe glances at it and shakes his head.

“You won’t be able to talk even after you heal. I don’t think you need a paper to tell you that, Tsunayoshi-san.” He takes a long look at Tsuna, something tired and something else in his expression, something that makes Tsuna uncomfortable in a way he hasn’t been in a while. “Was it truly that bad? You seemed to be managing, despite everything.”

And Tsuna smiles, tired and open. He can only shake his head with his throat burnt out. The message still gets across.

_ No, I wasn’t. _

* * *

He’s on suicide watch. Soon to be released since he’s finally awake and healed as much as he ever will be, though physiotherapy is always an option, according to one of the doctors. Tsuna doesn’t think there’s any point to it. If Reborn’s Flames couldn’t heal any more than this, then it isn’t going to get any better.

The doctors pretend he’s a sort of living paperweight while he waits for… someone, to pick him up. It’s no less than what he expects, really. They’ve got gang war victims and reckless idiots to tend to, and if you can’t make it in Namimori- well, no one’s going to stop you from going, if you’re just going to clog the streets.

He wonders if it’ll be Iemitsu he sees first. He wonders if his mother will want to even look at him.

Three days after he wakes up, with multiple Committee members having passed through his room and Kusakabe’s visits of explanations, the door clicks open and it isn’t a doctor. He can’t see anyone in the doorway at first and that, really, tells Tsuna who it is instantly. The teen leans forward slightly, just enough to see past the edge of the bed, and meets eyes with Reborn. There’s a moment of silence, contemplation. Tsuna isn’t scared or nervous and it feels strange, like there’s a sword just above his head that he’s turned away from. He can’t say good morning. He wiggles his fingers instead. 

“...Can you move?” Reborn eventually asks and his voice is deep, it doesn’t fit the body of a toddler at all but it does fit a man, lanky and tall and edged with orange. Tsuna can’t help the amused grin, that this is what finally makes that fall flat. Reborn seems bemused, but really- what the hell can he say with the shit he’s pulled before?

Tsuna clambers out of bed and shoves on his slippers in answer. He’s ready to leave this white cage.

* * *

Namimori is no different a city just because Tsuna tried to kill himself.

There are crowds flooding the streets, shops are bustling and people are chatting. He can spot ones with guns hidden in vests and knives tucked in the waist of pants. He recognises the ones he has class with, distinguishes between the ones who’d ruined his desks and who’d pretended he hadn’t existed. He’d felt anger at them, resentment, fear the last time he saw them. It’s still there, but it’s muffled almost. Tsuna has bigger stuff to give a shit about.

Reborn isn’t riding on his shoulder, or on his head, or using one of his dozens of costumes or bugs to keep pace. He’s actually keeping an almost careful distance between himself and Tsuna, deliberate. Tsuna wants to ask what he’s so afraid of, that he refuses to touch a useless civilian brat now. He wants to ask what the hell is going to happen now. He can’t. They enter the suburbs before anything is actually said.

“Nana, Fuuta, and I-pin will be at the house. I’ve made sure your Guardians won’t be crowding it until you ask for them,” Reborn suddenly says and Tsuna cocks his head, picking apart what is and isn’t. It’s so much easier now; maybe he should have cut his neck sooner. There’s an important bit that wasn’t mentioned though and Tsuna lightly pats his thigh to grab Reborn’s attention, waving his ring hand in question. The hitman grimaces.

“The Vongola is… staying away for now, on recommendation.” Huh. That sounds like bullshit. Reborn’s grimace deepens. “They’re busy trying to maintain inter-famiglie relationships since their heir just tore out his throat in front of hundreds of outsiders.”

…Oh, right. He’d kind of forgotten there’d been other people there besides the obvious. Still, Tsuna cocks his head and taps it again, getting a blank look. He only points at Reborn in question.

Why are you still here?

The Arcobaleno doesn’t answer. Tsuna hadn’t really expected him to.

* * *

The house, in a word, can be described as still. Tsuna can’t call out tadaima and Reborn rarely bothers with the tradition and stepping past the genkan, it feels as though the air’s been disturbed then left to stand. Framed pictures are gone from the walls, pale squares left in their place. A vase that had been sitting on an end table for years is missing. He can’t hear the kids. He can’t hear his mother. It smells of something burnt.

Reborn doesn’t seemed phased by any of this. It is not a sudden development. 

Tsuna wanders further inside, glances into the empty kitchen and living room before he stops, catching sight through the glass back door. His mother’s on the porch, fiddling with something, and he can’t help the sudden spike of apprehension, wanting to just stumble up to his room and hide away, not have to look her in the face, not have to be dissected and apologise and argue much as his brain’s yelling it won’t go like that. He’s scared. Terrified. He really wishes it didn’t take this long for the shock to wear off.

Reborn, because he’s never going to take mercy on Tsuna, even when he’s recovering from a torn throat, is over to the door in a bound and knocking on the glass, catching Nana’s attention. She turns, their eyes catch, and it’s as though he’s turned to stone.

She looks different Not in the sense that she’s cut her hair or completely changed her clothes or anything so drastic, but she just looks older, she s finally put on the wrinkles and lines of thirty-four that she’d managed to avoid and there’s a gleam in her eye that is wholly other to the air-headed woman Tsuna had tried to escape. His mother doesn’t look at him as though the stars are hung only for them. She looks at him as though someone took a hammer to them, and the shards had burnt down the house.

Whatever is in her hand is small. He can’t make it out from here. She doesn’t get up or open the door. Brings up the hand clutching something instead, holding it to the light. Tsuna can see the gleam of gold, a jewel reflecting. Her wedding band. He hasn’t seen her take it off outside of doing dishes since he was a child. 

Nana curls her fist around it, turns, and hurls it as hard as she can. When she looks back, there’s a desperation, a resolve. Her eyes shimmer hazel. 

Tsuna opens the door.


End file.
